I'm home!

I just returned from 4 weeks in Baltimore, MD for work. (Yes, it's been more than four weeks since I've blogged...I was just being lazy then). It was too long, and I am so glad to be home. While I was gone, Super Hubs struck again! Ben moved us into our new house and surprised me when I got back. I was SO happy to have missed the move (I hate moving). We've gotten a lot of unpacking done, but there's always more to do. Eventually our new place will be set up. 

We now live in the Broadmoor neighborhood by our church. We are so looking forward to being in the neighborhood and a part of the community. 

And our happy animals are enjoying living outside. Well, perhaps not enjoying it since the Mississippi heat has already reached into the 90s, but they are happy to be outside. Ben and I are as well.

Perks of the new house: 

- central air conditioning (we had window units in our other poorly-insultated house) 

- no loud college boys blasting techno at odd hours of the night

- fenced backyard for the dogs (Super Hubs built a sweet pen for the dogs)

- TWO (yes two) working toilets

- Outdoor living room, complete with beer fridge (We don't try to suppress the country, just let it out)

Yesterday was our anniversary! Two years married to the best husband ever. I can't believe how much I have grown as a person and we have grown as husband and wife in the past two years. It's amazing to watch God work in our lives.

What a wonderful day!

Since it's been so long, I'll have to catch you up on my sewing escapades as well. I haven't been sewing recently, except shortening and hemming some curtains, but I did have a couple successful sewing projects a while ago.

This was the fabric I had been saving up to buy. This isn't a great picture, but this is a wrap-around dress with ruffles on all the edges. The ruffles were much bigger than I expected, but overall I was happy. Next time I'll probably use thinner material and less ruffles.

There, that's much better. (And notice the change of background here? This is our new house!)

I'm still having issues picking out fabric that will look good once I'm wearing it...such as this nice little lime-green number. It's even brighter in person. And the pajama pants make a nice outfit. But it works, at least for summertime. It's a very simple, quick shirt. It was supposed to be a tank top but I added sleeves. I plan to make several in different fabrics for work, but will just stick to the tank top next time.

That's about it for now. Probably won't be sewing for a while as we continue to get settled, and get busy with summer activities - summer movies, baseball games, vacation in Chattanooga with friends, family visiting, and who knows what else!

Family Time

The past couple of days our family game has been "Find the Smell!" With two dogs and a cat, there's no telling what a rogue smell could be...so after searching high and low, and numerous theories to include dead animals in the walls, we discovered that it was just a broken dishwasher that had dirty water backing up into it. So it will be hand-washing from now on!

In other news, while working for the federal government is a pretty sweet deal, it's not so much when we're 6 months into the fiscal year and they haven't even set a budget yet. So while all those politicians up on Capital Hill continue to argue and haggle, we wait. What does that mean for me? When the effect of what they're doing trickles on down to the insignificant paper-pushers like me, it means that if they don't set a budget, I stop working and stop getting paid. While some vacation time would be gladly welcomed, furlough is not. And hence our new family game: "Skim the Budget."

Kings and Things

Ben's Spring Break began this week. He originally was going to be out of town for 9 days for his job, but their trip got cancelled so he didn't have to leave me! I thought it would be fun for us to take a trip, but I was just excited he wouldn't be gone. Monday he told me he had a surprise for me on Friday. I figured dinner and a movie, since that's usually about all our dates are. I came home Friday after work to find

The funny thing is I couldn't figure out what he meant! I knew the picture was of the main guy from the Twilight movies, but I couldn't remember his name. "Pack for the...King Vampire? King of Twilight? King...Bloodsucker?" Finally Ben told me to remember his name...which took a while. "The King Edward!"
The King Edward Hotel was built in 1923 but went out of business and sat abandoned and forlorn for about 40 years. It was dilapidated and home to the homeless and pigeons. My whole life the downtown Jackson skyline included the HOTEL KING EDWARD sign atop the empty building.

In 2009 it finally reopened its doors again - renovated, modern, and beautiful. Sadly, it's not officially the King Edward anymore since Hilton bought it out, and so the familiar sign is no longer there, but the building was restored to the original designs and updated to accommodate the modern-day hotel-goer. We've been wanting to go since it reopened.
So we had a vacation in town - went out to eat, spent the night at the hotel, enjoyed sleeping in and relaxing. It was awesome. Super Hubby strikes again.

And on the sewing front, remember that shirt I said I was making without a pattern?

Here we are! A Caitlin original. You know, it's not perfect -- it has all the same kind of flaws the stuff I make always has -- but I really like it. Maybe because it's my own, maybe because it actually turned out like the picture in my head.

Close-up of the center detailing

Still haven't saved enough money for that fabric I want. So it's on to the next project with the scraps lying around. Perhaps I'll have some strokes of genius, and maybe that Etsy store will be up soon.

Over the Rainbow

Life has been busy. And I'm tired.
I did, though, get some sewing done.

This was my most recent project, but I didn't finish it. This happens every time I make something for myself. I get close to the end and I'm just disappointed, and then I quit. There's no point to hem and finish when there are bad stitches I can't do anything about. Now, yes it looks great in that picture. But there are so many problems when you're actually holding it in your hands and looking at it up close it just drive me crazy! And so there's another one to take up space in my closet. Maybe I'll finish it one day.
And so it's on to another project. I've decided that one issue is I keep buying bargain fabric, or fabric (such as the silky one used in the above dress) that I'm not used to working with. So I just want to buy some nice cotton fabric...and of course the one that I fell in love with at the store was so expensive! So I'll be waiting a while before buying any. But thankfully I found some fabric in my stash that I can play around with until I have enough money. Now I'm making a shirt (not using a pattern!) so...that'll keep me occupied for a little while at least. We'll see how it goes.

I'm getting better...at some things

"Oh Ben such a nice shirt you have on! Where on earth did you get such a well-constructed shirt that a lot of time and love obviously went into making it?"
HIS WIFE MADE IT!
Booyah! cranky sewing machines (I guess I just have issues with machines...or the whole sewing industry is against me)

I finished that finally this weekend. And Ben loves it! But he wouldn't let me take a picture of his handsome face to show off, so you just get a torso. The only thing that wasn't great was the pocket, which, of course, is emblazoned right there on the chest, but I think it's probably good enough only I would notice anything wrong since I made it.


At 6:30 tonight I remembered I have to take a dessert to work tomorrow for potluck. Having to feed a lot of people - best choice is a cake. Not wanting to go to the store - means homemade. Tip: trying to make a homemade cake from an internet recipe and ad-libbing a bit is not always a good idea. I think the cake turned out ok. It's cooling, so we will see. I even attempted icing, and now have a headache from repeatedly tasting it to get the right ratio of ingredients...but that was a disaster. It taste like a diabetic coma. So I will have to go to the store anyway.
Next time I'll just make brownies. So much easier, lot less of a headache.

These animals be crazy

Ben and I have three children, Jackson, Zoe, and Colby. Jackson is a lab-chow mix, Zoe is an orange calico, and Colby is an australian shepherd-healer mix. I think I mostly enjoy having them around because I can laugh at them.

This is Zoe's "don't mess with me" face

Jackson really gets sad when Ben leaves.
He stares out the window, whining, and waiting for him to come back.

Zoe found a new hiding place in our laundry closet to get away from the dogs.
I couldn't find her here for several hours either, but now I know where to look.

Something was under the dresser that the cat desperately wanted

This is an unusual state of being for Colby. Normally when I try to
take a picture of her she just turns out a blur. She never stops moving!

And we have a finished product

My first made-from-scratch piece of clothing that is actually wearable.

Yay!

And in light of my triumph over the sewing imps, I am entertaining the thought of opening my own Etsy store. For those of you that have never heard of Etsy, it's an online shopping community specifically for handmade and vintage items. But it will take me a while to create enough merchandise to open the store, so that won't be happening in the near future. 

But that's in the sights for now. We shall see how it goes.

Next project: Super Hubs has requested a button-down shirt. Pattern and fabric have been bought, and cutting has begun. I told him not to have high hopes. Updates on the trials and tribulations of collars and cuffs soon to come.

Aspirations of a Green Floral Print

There once was a lovely fabric that only ever wanted to be made into clothes. For some unknown reason it was banished to the clearance bin at Wal-Mart, but I saved it, took it home, washed it, and safely tucked it away until the perfect project came along. And then it's big day came: it was going to be a tunic.

Then half-way through, this happened! The iron completely melted it in a mere second. Apparently the overheat protection function on the iron broke...at least that's what I like to think. Super Husband is kind enough to let me continue thinking that (though there's always a strong possibility of user error) and he even bought me a new iron.

But it seemed that all hope was lost for this bargain cotton print. But thankfully, the tunic could be made into a shirt. And there was much rejoicing!

As I said to Ben, I seem to have more mishaps than are even probable with my sewing projects. It's a bit ridiculous.

So after I figured out we could save my fabric and all the work wasn't completely gone to waste, we went out to Target to get a new iron. And I came home with this:

The sewing machines were right next to the irons, I just couldn't help myself. And when I saw how cheap this machine was, it seemed too good to pass up. A heavy duty metal frame, but only the most basic of stitches. With as much trouble as my machine gives me,  for my own peace of mind and for the sake of my marriage, I just needed something that would just work. And this does. It was cheap, so not too much can be expected, but I'm happy to have something new. And with the help of my new machine we are getting closer to being finished with my once-tunic-now-shirt project. So we'll see how it goes...

This is Heidi modeling the progress so far

Destined for TV Fame?

Last night Super Hubs and I were watching "Worst Cooks in America" on Food Network. Now, I don't cook in my house because I am not good at it. Ben is good at it and enjoys it, so I gladly let him cook for us. We were discussing how neither of us are such terrible cooks that we need to be on that show. Ben is actually a good cook, and I can do the basics - cook a piece of chicken, brown ground beef, make rice, heat up a can of vegetables - so if I ever have to I can feed myself.
But I do pride myself on being able to bake - Ben's the cook, I'm the baker. Even with our lopsided oven I enjoy baking cakes and brownies and people always seem to enjoy them.
But apparently I have issues with cookies. In the middle of our show, Ben wanted some cookies. We always have the stuff around for homemade cookies, and they're easy to make. So I whip up a batch, stick em in the oven, and pull em out a few minutes later...and the crisp smell of burnt cookies wafts out to fill our house.
Perhaps I should've been on that show...

I can feel my fingers, so it's time to blog

Today is supposed to be the beginning of our terrible winter storm. Last year the storm actually brought a few feet of snow, but so far today it's not living up to the hype. Just some sleet. Still keeping my fingers crossed that it'll get bad enough to close my office tomorrow...

So a lazy Sunday afternoon with every heater in the house on and Ben and I snuggled up in blankets. Oh the joys of an old house...Right now I'm sitting with my feet propped up in front of the furnace for them to thaw out.

I would be sewing right now if my machine was cooperating, but alas...she's on the fritz. When she broke on my yesterday I almost broke something else. But this is a good excuse to catch up on the blog. Kendra, I was in the middle of finishing your last chair cushion, so when the machine decides to work again it'll be the first thing I do.

The holidays were busy busy as usual. But besides that I haven't done anything else because of my Christmas present from Super Hubby.
Best. Present. Ever.

The break was nice; I even took some time off work. Christmas was all of the Jackson families squeezed in when we could: my dad's family before Christmas, and the rest of my family on Christmas Eve for the annual IHOP dinner after church. This trip was a special one because it was my nephew's Layne first pancake experience. You could tell this was a big deal because of all the pictures that his mother took to document the occasion. And that little kid racked up on presents; I'm pretty sure he had more than the rest of the family combined. Well at least he's at the age that he doesn't know what's going on and can't say, "I don't like that."

Christmas morning we spent with Ben's mom and family. We had a wonderful non-traditional Christmas meal of beef strew. I actually didn't have to eat turkey or ham once over the holidays. We'll mark that as a victory for the taste buds. I'm just glad we got to see them for Christmas since the week prior they all had the flu and then Ben's brother got walking pneumonia. But they managed it.

New Years we spent down in Orlando with Ben's dad and family. We usually only get to see them once or twice a year, so we go down for as long as we can when we go. Our little nephew down there has started talking since we last saw him and loves balls, bubbles, bowling and balloons. Somehow I was christened Aunt Bubbles and Ben's not going to let that one go. I think I'm stuck with it.

And now that the holidays are over it's back to the normal swing of things. Hopefully we won't have any pipes freezing and bursting this year that cause a mess of things.

It's still not snowing...yet...

Ok I think I will go try the machine again. I might have to kick Ben off the Xbox and play some Mario Kart...